Steer Clear of These 4 Career Mistakes in Future

With the onset of the last quarter of the current year, it is time to give wings to your long pending plans and act in a direction which would lead you to higher level of career success. The passing year must have taught you a lot of lessons when it comes to making vital career decisions. Not only you must not repeat those mistakes, but also you have to be more careful and change your habits according to changing times. Here are five things you need to stop doing right now to be a more successful professional.

It’s the end of the year, and the right time to start planning for how you would like your career to look like in the coming year. Sometimes the best way to do something right is to stop doing something wrong. If career is your first priority this saying will ring the right kind of emotions in you. Needless to say, there are some habits that can cost you an entire career and leave you disillusioned. Here are the top five blunders that you need to stop committing in order to position yourself for stupendous success in 2017.

An incomplete resume

This is no less than a sin. One of the big mistakes that job seekers make is to wait until a suitable opportunity stares them in the face. The big disadvantage that you will be having this way is that you will have less time to prepare and then the resume that you create will be a less than stellar and might end up showing a bad impression to the recruiter. You can’t be updating your resume for every job opening but if you can do that, nothing will be better. It will take a lot of efforts, but since many job seekers would avoid doing that, you will have less of competition and better chances of getting noticed.

The major additions that you can do to your CV now depend on the work that you have done in the past year. Which of your accomplishments made a difference to your organization? Can you update your resume with a new design or CV? Does your CV have the latest trends and skills that currently matter to the industry? If you have doubts about the right CV format, the simplest solution would be to refer to some good professional CV building service.

An insignificant social media presence

The data provided by Jobvite’s 2014 Survey shows that 94% of employers use LinkedIn as their main source for recruiting. If you are thinking that you can succeed without having presence on social media, this is nothing more than wishful thinking. How can you expect to be called by the recruiters for an interview when they won’t even find you?

Always keep your profile updated and use an attractive headline to capture the attention of recruiters. Your LinkedIn profile should not be without a photograph which should be a professional snap of yours, without any distractions. The headline is followed by a summary of your professional achievements and the work that you have done till now. It should be able to express your usefulness to the recruiter. If the summary doesn’t make it easy for recruiters to find your core skills then it needs some tweaking.

According to Jobvite, “Top recruiters use social media at each stage of the recruiting funnel.”

No professional network

This is a common mistake that 90 percent of us commit. We are so absorbed in our work schedule that we completely ignore the importance of having a professional network. This is indeed a sad truth, and when the fact is that 4 in 10 job seekers have found their favorite or best job through personal network. It is really hard to focus on something that doesn’t show immediate results. LinkedIn is the best way of keeping in touch with the professional network. If you keep your eyes and ears open there are chances that someone in your network might refer you to a position that might be good for you.

Take out at least 15-20 minutes from your daily schedule, after your work hours or before you start the important tasks of the day to nurture and maintain your network.

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You are assuming you have a secure job

Owing to rapidly changing economic times, companies are now forced to modify their business models without any warning to remain ahead of the competition. The same company that finds your skills indispensable today might consider them irrelevant tomorrow. Today you might be the irreplaceable employee who never does a thing wrong, and tomorrow you might become a redundant asset. This does not mean you did anything to deserve it. It’s just business, and when it happens, you must be ready to move on and find a new job fast.

Now that you have the necessary information about your mistakes and the possible ways to avoid them, a good year in terms of your career is waiting.

Any facts, figures or references stated here are made by the author & don't reflect the endorsement of iU at all times unless otherwise drafted by official staff at iU. This article was first published here on 27th October 2016.

Saurabh Tyagi

Saurabh Tyagi is a contributing writer at Inspiration Unlimited eMagazine.